Here in Government Recordkeeping, we know the value of a good conversation. You know the type, where you get the opportunity to air your thoughts, feel listened to, learn from others and be inspired by their tales of successes (and, at times, failures!). When you have these conversations you realise you’re not alone; you’re part of a community and there’s plenty of people out there grappling with exactly the same things you are and who can offer advice. What’s even better is when you make a connection with the very person you need to talk to because ‘they’ve been there done that’ and can help shed some light on the issue you’re tackling.

Well, that’s exactly what we’re hoping to help foster in our new Extended Conversations events. During August we held two Extended Conversations events – a face-to-face and an online event, specifically on the GRDS Lite and the Transitory Records & Short Term Value RDS. And we’re planning on holding more events, so let us know if there are specific issues that are on your mind. If you can’t make it to an event, why not participate in the twitter conversation #ExtendedConversation too, as we’re keen to get the conversations going as extensively as possible!

While we experienced a few hiccups at our first ever online event for government clients (sorry for those telephone issues – we promise to fix next time!) and some of us being slightly petrified of being videoed (no Tony Jones/Q&A panel member hair & make-up treatment for us), we figure we can only get better at this. We really enjoyed talking with everyone who participated, both to share information with you, answer your queries and facilitate an opportunity for building networks across agencies.

Across the two events we heard how some of you are using the schedules, while others aren’t, but see its potential for simplifying disposal. Some, like the universities have already developed their own Lite version. We heard about some of your challenges, like having a lot of schedules to manage, and the triggers not really being geared to eDRMS implementation. And we heard about some of your solutions (e.g. setting a default review date of 6 months for those transitory records captured in your eDRMS to review if business use has ceased). You also flagged a trigger discrepancy which we’re going to fix.

We took the opportunity to poll participants about publishing another version of the GRDS Lite once GRDS v8 is released and, when we pooled responses across the two events, it seems this is preferred. We also asked whether the transitory schedule should go back into the GRDS and the majority indicated a preference to keep it separate. Do you have a view on this too? Don’t worry, we will be formally consulting with you later in the year so you too, can have your say.

Following the online event, the very generous Gabby Ingram from Griffith University offered to share her HP Records Manager 8 import files for the GRDS Lite and QDANs 656v2 (GRDS for Original paper records that have been digitised), 678v1 (GRDS for Digital Source Records) and 720v1 (Transitory Records & Short Term Value RDS). This is so those with RM 8 (and most likely TRIM 7) can import these into their EDRMS without the work involved in configuring for the first time. She thought this may be useful for some of the smaller, less staffed agencies – all that then needs to be done is to configure your trigger actions as relevant to your business needs. Send an email to RKQueries@archives.qld.gov.au if you are interested in receiving these and we’ll arrange for them to be shared with you.

We’re so pleased because that offer from Gabby is totally in the spirit of what we’re hoping to foster. Do you have any learnings you’d like to share or a conversation you’d like to have with your colleagues? Let us know. Remember, to visit our Government Recordkeeping yammer group too where there’s always an opportunity for you to share your stories and have a conversation with your colleagues! And stay tuned too for further Extended Conversation events.